


As We Have Before

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-25
Updated: 2007-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: He's The Flash.  The people in his family have a history of not giving up. Bart's not going to let that legacy down.





	As We Have Before

The last thing Bart knows before becoming engulfed in the light is that he’s dying, and saying goodbye to Val and Grandma Iris is very important.

Or…not really. Because Bart doesn’t know _a lot_ about being dead, but he does know that it isn’t supposed to hurt this way once it's all over. Every spot where the Black Flash had taken his toll, where the Rogues had cut into his body with a combination of fire, ice, and lightning aches so badly that Bart can‘t quite force himself off the floor.

Black Flash is still there, staring at him silently. But Bart hurts too much to get up and do anything about it. Even if he isn’t dead yet… he doesn’t have enough strength to get up, to bring any more fight.

No matter how disappointed Wally would be. Or Grandpa Barry.

And time…time doesn’t move as slow wherever Bart is as it always had, so he has no way to gage exactly how long he’d been lying on the cold black floor before he is able to sit up.

When he finally can, the Black Flash isn’t there anymore. In his place is a small girl, dressed all in black who is looking at him with a tiny little smile that reminds him of Tim… back when there’d still been a Young Justice and it hadn’t hurt Tim as much to smile at the people who loved him.

"Are you ready now, Bart?" She asks, and the voice ends all comparisons with Tim. She is too perky, too upbeat for that.

"Ready for what?" He tries tapping into speed force again, and just like before, it doesn’t work. But unlike before, when he’d tried so hard, to keep Val from crying, to keep Tim from having to hear word of _another_ death, this time he _does_ feel the smallest of tingles in his veins.

The Speed Force is there. It’s coming back. He just has to try harder.

"No one could have survived the attack your Rogues unleashed upon you. You’re time’s up, Bart. You can stop fighting and come with me."

Bart stops flexing his muscles long enough to wonder why this conversation doesn‘t feel as slow as the other ones he‘s had with non-speedsters. The woman _did_ kind of match Black Flash… maybe she was some type of supernatural representation of death, too. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about, but to Bart, it really doesn’t matter, because, "Sorry, Lady. But I’m The Flash. And the people in my family have history of not giving up."

She gives him the Tim grin again, and God, when he gets back, Bart is going to do everything in his power to make Tim show that grin to him again. "Yes, I’ve noticed that trend in your family. It makes my job kind of difficult to do."

"Sorry." The tingle in his veins is growing stronger as Bart forces himself to stand up. He ignores the pain that slices through him as he does so, because he’s The Flash, and they don’t worry about such things. When he does, the black floor wobbles beneath him and the black walls surrounding start to fade … no, _change_ to shapes of people… places… events he should be at. Wally…Tim… Cassie, Cissie, Greta, Anita … the Amazons… they all look so sad. He should be there with them, and the growing tingle moving up his legs that makes it more than a little difficult to handle the wobbly floor tells him if he just tries a little harder, he can _get there._ "But these people kind of need me."

"You can come with me and rest. You died a warrior’s death, and have earned it. That’s not giving up," the girl cautions. "If you stay here, all you can do … is run towards the pictures around you, each one speeding up as each minute passes. Why would you chose that path?"

"I’m guessing that you’re an anthropomorphic representation of death, secret identities probably aren’t a big deal, am I right?" Bart asks, feeling some of the old impatience that he used to have back during his Impulse days. Back when life really hadn’t been more important than a video game.

He wishes he was still naïve enough to be that stupid.

She even laughs, something Bart wouldn't have suspected the harbinger of death to do. Bart hopes that she was the one to greet Kon; he figures his friend would have found the girl to be pretty hot. Which yeah, she was, but Bart has a girlfriend to get back to. Bart focuses on the images flying past him as he answers her question. "I’m Bart Allen. I’m The Flash. I run real fast. And I help people. Laying down and resting isn’t in the job description. So thanks, but… no thanks."

"I keep revising my speech and hoping it will work on one of you some day," the girl says with a sigh.

"Wow, that was the revised version? Because really? It wasn’t very good," Bart answers, feeling the tingle in his veins travel north of his waist, where it spreads throughout his chest.

"Gee thanks," the girl retorts, with a soft tilt of her head, which causes her black hair to tumble over her face. "You do know that there’s a chance even the fastest man alive won’t be able to run fast enough to catch them, right?"

"But there’s a chance I could, right?"

"…Yes. A small one, but a chance nonetheless."

Bart grins back at her. "When you revise that speech, you might want to say no. Because if you don’t…there’s still hope. AndIcanruntowardsthat."

She gives him one last smile before it even completely registers that his speed is back. "Good luck, Bart."

And then she is gone, and Bart is alone with the images flying past him, so fast that they become mere blurs that even he can't completely make out while he's standing still. The road beneath him shifts from being wobbly to not being there at all, and part of Bart still hurts from the attack that should have killed him.

But a hero is someone who stands up when his legs are gone, Grandpa Barry had said. So Bart focuses on the nearest image he can’t fully see and forces his legs to run without having a surface to run on for Grandpa Barry, who’d been the kind of hero every Flash wanted to be and. . .

For Grandma Iris, who had tried so hard to keep him alive. . .

For Kon, who wouldn‘t have given up if he’d had a choice …

For Alvin, Imp, and The Kid; For Cassie, Greta, Anita, Cissie, and Traya and the Young Justice team that had taught him how to be a superhero. . . .

For Wally, Linda, and the twins he wanted to call family . . .

For Max and Jay and Joan who had put up with him when he hadn‘t known any better…

For Rose and Carol and Val who had all made him want to be better than he actually was…

For all of the people who shouldn’t have to go to his funeral …

For the League he’d been planning on growing into….

For Kory, Vic, Mia, Gar, and all the Titans past, present, and future….

For Tim, who can’t handle to lose one more person.

The tingle has spread throughout his entire body, and Bart vaguely realizes that he’s probably in the Speed Force.

Grandpa Barry should be here, if he is. But he’s not, which gives Bart even more hope. Maybe Grandpa Barry escaped too.

At the thought, Bart smiles and runs faster.


End file.
